Wow. I find it sad that the general consensus here is that "well, if the nurse THOUGHT it was the Queen, who can blame her for giving info?"

Wake up, folks! It doesn't matter WHO a caller CLAIMS to be! Without a password/verification system, no info goes out without patient permission, and that's just the breaks. I'd much rather be yelled at for NOT giving out info to a bigwig than for blabbing confidential information to some unknown, unverifiable source! At least the first scenario, you have a decent defense. The second one, you broke the law because you were ...what exactly? Afraid? Afraid of what? Doing your job correctly and protecting patient privacy? Good luck with that one!

I've never worked at a place where someone had to have passwords to get info. They just said their name and if the name was on the list they got the info. Always struck me as a not very good system.

Suppose the closest difference we have here in the States would be, using Manhattan, New York City as a reference a hospital of last resort or City run hospital such as Bellevue versus a private room/wing in say Lenox Hill (a la Beyonce).

With the advent of modern health insurance the differences between private and public hospitals isn't often as great as one might find in the UK. There used to be many *luxury* private hospitals around including the famous LeRoy on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan, and Doctor's Hospital on Staten Island but most have long since closed or merged.

In terms of the Royals, yes historically they did have healthcare brought to them up to and including having rooms in one of their palaces converted into OR and recovery suites. Buckingham Palace provided an unlikely operating theatre for King Edward VII in 1902. Suffering from peritonitis and close to death, he was operated on in a room overlooking the garden. HM Queen Elizabeth gave birth to princes Charles and Andrew at BP as well.

The late Diana, pss of Wales was the first modern royal to choose give birth in hospital for an heir to the throne, IIRC.

Just saw the news! That poor luv! What must have been going through that nurse's mind to drive her toward such a thing.

It wasn't like what one often finds here where administration and management was throwing her under a bus, quite the opposite; well at least that is what the hospital is telling the media.

Those pranksters should be dragged from Oz, in chains if necessary and made to view the results of their handiwork. This nasty business of exploiting the royals has to stop. These vultures hounded Diana into her grave and seem intent on getting their hooks into the dss of C as well.

Don't understand this one bit. The nurse in question was the mother of two small children, surely it must have crossed her mind as to what would become of them without her.

Reading between the lines, and am *NOT* making any sort of negative racial thing, but the nurse may have been Asian or Phillipine. Maybe she simply felt such shame and guilt about being part of the prank that she "lost face" as now forever being associated with this prank.

I actually feel sorry for the DJs now. I am a big old softie. I am sure they never dreamed their prank would end like this. I would hate to be feeling what they must be feeling.

Let it be a lesson to us all that we never know what may send someone "over the edge", even if it seems like innocent fun at the time.

Tragic all around.

One cannot know for certain of course but does not expect a great amount of remorse out of those two "DJs". Persons attracted to that sort of entertainment (and one uses that term very loosely here), often tend towards various narcissistic personality disorders IMHO and don't really feel negative outcomes are their fault.

I agree with DGTG ... I do not expect any kind of appropriate expression of remorse from the DJs, their management or the radio station. Train wrecks in the name of entertainment is their bread and butter. A person has to lack empathy to get up everyday and go to work to do this sort of thing.

I don't agree that one must be narcissistic or sociopathic to pull a prank. Maybe these people were just not cognizant of the extensive negative repercussions their behavior could cause. As one of them said, they thought the hospital would hang up on them straightaway.

Hasn't anyone else here ever pulled a prank? And I don't think we all have personality disorders.

I don't agree that one must be narcissistic or sociopathic to pull a prank. Maybe these people were just not cognizant of the extensive negative repercussions their behavior could cause. As one of them said, they thought the hospital would hang up on them straightaway.

Hasn't anyone else here ever pulled a prank? And I don't think we all have personality disorders.

Oh please. Am not buying the whole "we thought the hospital would hang up right away" bit at all. Not one bit.

If that were true why didn't they cease the prank by hanging up after it became clear the call was going throug? Why did the DJs and the radio station continue to replay the stunt on air calling it the "greatest royal prank ever?) again and again? It seems only because of the nurse's suicide the radio station and to an extent the DJs changed some of their tune. That and the vast amount of negative PR worldwide as persons rose up in disgust .

I heard the prank call. The nurse sounded rather nervous. Is it possible that she didn't want to question it because "the Queen" had been patched through? Could she lose her job, you think? :<

Heard the prank call for the first time on ABC news and must say the girl pretending to be HM wasn't very good at all. I mean The Queen may have toned down her RP accent over the years but she certainly does not have an Australian one.

Upshot from much of the news coverage this evening from both the UK interviews and USA reporters is that the nurse in question if anything was doing what the profession is supposed to be about, caring for and wishing to help others. Her fellow nurses are devastated, that a forty-five year old or so woman could have been driven to this by a prank is more than some of them can stand.